


land of honey, soot, and wonder

by selkiegirl



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Magical Realism, this is way lighter than it seems, very light angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 14:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12633357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selkiegirl/pseuds/selkiegirl
Summary: Yuuri dies like he falls asleep, and when he wakes up, he is covered in flower blossoms.





	land of honey, soot, and wonder

**Author's Note:**

> As the summery says, death is mentioned, but it is neither permanent nor graphic in the slightest, which is why I did not tag it with major character death, however if it bothers people, just let me know, and I can change it!
> 
> Also it is tagged with angst, but like death, only really if you squint.
> 
> This is an idea that I have been playing with and wanting to write for a while, so it is shorter than usual. That being said, it was edited once or so, so let me know if you see any mistakes!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Yuuri dies for the first time when he is seventeen.

It had been the fourth day of November, a Thursday, and the red leaves that fell softly on the ground seemed like that of the feathers of a phoenix. He had stepped into the road, and the white car had hit him with enough force to lift his body off the ground.

He thinks about his dog, moments later, and as he brings his hand to touch the hollow curve of his throat, the day goes black.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri wakes with a witch with long golden hair tied in a bun, and hands stained forever black from soot, leaning over him.

She smiles at him, sharp eyed and sharp teethed, “You’re back. You owe me.”

Yuuri does not speak, his voice filled with brimstone, honey and ash. It's an odd exchange, to give three years of your life to chase death away, like a cruel dog, the first time it visits.

He wonders distantly, who had brought him to the witches after he died.

He wonders, distantly, if he wanted this.

He brings his hand above his eyes, soot lingering on the tips of his fingers in small, smudged marks. He does not want to think about the other things that comes with a witch deal, a magic so midnight dark that ruins your chances of natural magic, that last two years before leaving nothing but snow cold longing behind.

 

* * *

 

He finds Nishigori in the small waiting room.

“We can’t tell anyone.” He hisses, and Yuuri, with infinite words stuck in his throat and the taste of honey coating his tongue, with ash trapped underneath his nails, is not inclined to disagree.

 

* * *

 

“Where were you?” Mari snaps when he comes home, standing in the door ways, her arms defiantly crossed across her crest, and her spiky hair pulled back to show the piercing lined along the side of her ears.

When Yuuri does not answer, she hisses, “Were you with Yuuko? She has a boyfriend? What do you think people will say?”

“I’m _gay_ ,” Yuuri mutters, because he feels so so _cold_ , and he can answer that, undefinable, unknown anger sticking to his words like salt, as they land like a tossed pebble in a pond, and all he can think is this was not how he wanted to tell her.

But Mari opens her mouth, and then closes it, biting her lip like it is not a big deal, and looks at her feet, “Alright.”

Yuuri pressed his fingers hard enough into his palms to leave small crescents moons of soot, swallows the sweetness lingering in his mouth, shoves his hands into his pockets, and wants to cry.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later, Yuuri wakes from a nightmare about red leaves and white cars, covered in sweat, and with hundreds of tiny, white clover blossoms in his bed and in his hair. He sucks in a breath, the noise rattling through his teeth, until he can feels like he can no longer breathe at all.

 

* * *

 

Miniko finds out at her studio, when Yuuri had pulled himself into thin delicate, graceful lines, and tiny, five petaled, violet blooms had scattered the floor.

“I,” She states, tapping her finger against her mouth, something unreadable present in cold lines on her features, “did not know you had magic.”

“I don’t.”

“I do not understand.” She says crisply. But when Yuuri uncurls his fingers, and the chalky black is visible on his wrists on and the tips of his fingers, she covers her mouth with her long, slender fingers, and pulls him to her.

Yuuri can only think that her embrace is so warm, when the cold surrounds him like an ever-present ghost, and he does not meet her eye as he sobs onto her shoulder.  

 

* * *

 

 _“What happened?_ ” She will ask him later, when they sit cross legged on the hardwood floor of her studio, both of them cupping steaming mugs of hot cocoa, the pink letters of her name glowing behind them.

“ _I was hit by a car.”_ Yuuri says, and it feels like a confession, like a thousand birds, like a stone, and like a lie. It's the first time he had mouthed the words out loud, and he wants to hide them, to pull back this grey coloured secret, to hide it forever more from the world.

“ _Did you look before crossing?”_ she murmurs, swirling her hot cocoa, and not looking at him.

And when Yuuri whispers, “ _no_ ,” his voice hushed, muted, it's another secret.

 

* * *

 

His magic is nothing like what he had expected.

It doesn’t have the same shadows, the same cloudless nights as he thought it would, and like the magic all others had gained from witch deals. Instead, only flowers bloom when he dances and when he moves, falling like rain and bursting forth from his palms, even with the soot marring their petals with black.

Yuuri does not know what it means.

 

* * *

 

He shows Yuuko the blossoms one night, when their textbooks and notebooks are spread around them in a circle, when they wear their exhaustion like coats, and when all ideas seems like good ones.

She had cupped the flower in her hands, her eyes wide and glowing with wonder. “Oh Yuuri,” she had breathed, and Yuuri had tried to smile like he did not hate himself.

 

* * *

 

He leaves Japan a week after his graduation.

“Where are you going to go?” Mari asks him, when he was packing his clothes messily into the open suitcase on his bed. She was leaning against the door frame, the smoke from her cigarette curling around her fingers like a tamed liquid snake, weaving and twisting.

“I don’t really know.” He had answered without looking at her, “I just need to get out of here for a while.”

It's a half lie. After he had woken to the scent of clover and the taste of honey thick and ashy in his mouth, he had pulled up the search results for different schools in the United States, the blue of his laptop casting his face eerie in the darkness.

Two weeks later, he had submitted an application to a school in Portland on a whim.

Five months later, he had gotten an email about his acceptance and and offering of a scholarship. He had agreed, and three days later he had brought the cheapest plane ticket he could find.

It was a long way from home, and Yuuri didn’t know, but, in someways, it felt like the right thing to do.

 

* * *

 

At the airport in Fukuoka, Yuuri stuffs his hands into thin gloves that are too warm for the weather, and when they ask him to fill out a form asking whether he had died in the past, he glances around, and then ticks the ‘no’ box with a shaky blue line.

 

* * *

 

He texts Mari when he lands, and in return she sends him three party popper emojis.

 

* * *

 

Portland is overwhelming. It is everything, and nothing, and then everything once more.

Yuuri has never felt more alive. And Yuuri had never felt more lonely.

 

* * *

 

He meets Phichit that summer, over cheap swirled ice cream, the golden sunlight that frames him and the sunflowers that blossom in Yuuri’s ashy hands later, so fitting for his magnetic personality.

He already knows that they will be friends for a long, long time.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri finds a ballet studio in July.

Another man, with golden hair that reminds Yuuri of a wild lion’s mane,  and of the witch that brought him back to life, stays late with him one night, when anxiety had driven Yuuri there in the first place, his long legs stretched out and his back pressed against the mirror at he watches.

And when he sees the pale pink tulips that litter the ground when Yuuri stops to take breath after dancing, he can only gasp. “Yuuri...” he murmurs, “Yuuri, you’re beautiful.”

Maybe more than anything, Yuuri lets him look at him with a voice of wonder, with the tulip held in his hand like a gem, and reach out, his touches gentle as a breath, because of loneliness.

For three night, Yuuri lets the lion haired man kiss his open mouth and leave finger shaped bruises on his thighs.

For three nights, Yuuri swallows the taste of honey, and leaves delicate pink and white apple blossoms in the other man’s sheets. 

On the fourth day, Yuuri finds a different studio.   

 

* * *

 

In the fall, he starts taking classes at the college. He shares a dorm room with Phichit, where they hang up tiny strings of paper lanterns and polaroid photos on the walls with bright coloured tacks.

“Are you coming home anytime soon?” Mari asks over skype one afternoon, the red of her jinbei blending into the leaves that she sits against in the courtyard of the inn, and Yuuri misses her so much that it hurts. Next to him, the bough of russian sage withers.

But when he answers “no,” the word slipping unconsciously from his mouth like a raindrop, it's not a sad thing, and Mari smiles like she is happy for him.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri meets Viktor in his literature class, the silver haired man sitting in the row of seats behind him. They had met, briefly, before, through Chris’s and Phichit’s friendship, and Viktor awkwardly pulls Yuuri aside after class one day, asking to borrow his notes, a faint dusting of colour on his cheeks, and a small skiff of snow on the ground.

The carnations that blooms in Yuuri's pocket is the same colour at the blush on his cheeks when he says yes.

 

* * *

 

One year since Yuuri had stepped into the road with the red red leaves falling around him like whispers, he dabs at his nose with a tissue, and comes away with blood.

 

* * *

 

 

Phichit walks into their shared dorm room in January, when Yuuri holds a brilliantly red poppy in his hand, and drops his bag with a quiet thump.

“I didn’t know you had magic?” He says, and he pauses for a second, but then he moves, already grabbing a mug to make a cup of tea, and when he talks, his voice is more curious than awed.

And Yuuri, with the dark soot still perpetually trapped underneath his fingernails, is painfully grateful.  

 

* * *

 

In April, when the cherry trees starts to unfold into blooms, Yuuri gets coffee with Viktor. The coffee is lukewarm and bitter, their notes spread across the small table like puzzle pieces.

Later, when Yuuri stands on his toes to kiss Viktor, the empty coffee cups left sitting on the table, and the quiet wind tugging at their hair, Viktor tastes like honey, and Yuuri doesn’t know what it means.

 

* * *

 

 

Viktor sees the blossoms for the first time when they are curled up together on the small couch, when Viktor presses kisses to Yuuri’s cheeks, and to his temple, and to his nose. He gasps when he sees the pale blue forget-me-nots intertwined with Yuuri’s dark hair, pulling the flowers towards himself with gentle, trembling fingers. And for once, Yuuri does not mind when Viktor’s voice is filled with wonder.  

 

* * *

 

In October, Yuuri ties a woven bracelet from Phichit around his wrist, and holds a wad of tissue to his nose to stop it from bleeding.

That night, when he brushes his teeth, standing barefoot in front of a mirror, he scratches at his legs until it draws blood, the soot still hidden dark underneath his fingers mixing with the blood drops, turning it ink black and chalky.

 

* * *

 

In October, Yuuri dances for Viktor, holding his body until he's thinks he was born for this and until sunlight yellow chrysanthemums lie along the floor, scattering between thin light petals.

Viktor holds his hand to his mouth, and looks at Yuuri like a thousand stars, like he is worthy of wonder and awe.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri’s hair had gotten longer, and one day, leaning against Victor's kitchen counter, he pulls his hair back and leaves a streak of soot on his cheek.

Viktor stares at him, like he had never seen him before, and when he slowly brings his fingers to Yuuri’s face, his fingers come away brushed with black.

“I don't understand.” Viktor says, and it’s painful on its own, “Your  magic is so light?”

“I died when I was seventeen,” Yuuri says, looking down at his socks, the words tasting of nothing but biter, bitter ash.

“No.” Viktor says, still staring at the soot on his fingers, “I still don’t understand, your magic is not dark like that.”

“What?” Yuuri murmurs, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, and his hand pressing crescents into his thighs, “What are you talking about? I was hit by a car!”

“No, no,” Viktor snaps, “I get that, but this… this is not witch magic.”

Yuuri’s voices rises until it almost cracks, hysterical, “I _died_ , Viktor! The magic can only be from that.”

“I know!” Viktor hisses, “I made a witch deal as well. I know that! But your magic is not the same! I know the soot and the honey, but this is _your_ magic!

Yuuri does not believe him.

 

* * *

 

A little after midnight on November fifth, Yuuri wakes with his nose gushing blood, and his bed filled with with dried peonies.

He already knows the magic is gone. He had expected to feel sad, but he only felt… empty.

“Yuuri?” Phichit says, concerned, standing at the doorway in boxers and a loose tee-shirt, and when Yuuri touches his eyes, he realized that he had been crying.

 

* * *

 

Except...In the morning, when he wakes with the dried petals still clinging to his chest and hands, he swallows, and the sweet, summery golden taste of honey is still there

 

* * *

 

Two days later, when he holds hands with Viktor and twirls around in a slow moving dance on the rug in Phichit’s and his apartment, a single zinnia blossoms forth in between their clutched hands.

"I don’t understand.” Yuuri says, and he is the one cupping the flower in his hands, like something valuable, like something precious. 

“You’re _magic_ , Yuuri!” Viktor says, he’s giddy, his voice filled with wonder as he pulls Yuuri close to shower him in delicate kisses.

And for once, Yuuri lets himself believe it.

  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on [tumblr](http://selkiegirls.tumblr.com/post/167138818845/land-of-honey-soot-and-wonder) , if you are about that life, and care to reblog or like it there. 
> 
> Some alternate title ideas:  
> 1\. In which no one looks at anyone as they have conversations or covers their mouth with their hand entirely more often than normal.  
> 2\. In which selkiegirl uses way to many sections. Does one really need that many sections?? No?? No is the right answer.  
> 3\. In which selkigirl exploits her knowledge bank of flowers and symbolic meanings for no real reasons. 
> 
> Also random past google searches when writing this:  
> 1\. Graduation in Japan  
> 2\. March in Japan?  
> 3\. Schools in Portland  
> 4\. Does it snow in Portland???  
> 5\. How popular is hot cocoa in Japan?  
> 6\. Fall in Japan?? Japanese Maple leaf  
> 7\. November in Portland  
> 8\. Fukuoka airport
> 
> Please leave a comment or kudo if you liked the story!! And come hang out with me on [tumbly](http://selkiegirls.tumblr.com/)! It will be good, I promise!


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